Is there an optimal way to handle the High Priestess Kilnara fight in Disc? (ZG 5man)

Because right now it appears to not be suited for the spec so much (and Holy AOE mode appears powerful in it). There is very irregular damage unless the tactics are followed perfectly. I'm talking about a regular 5man that will do it clumsily. Forget for a moment that they don't do it properly and think about the damage an irregular fight in it produces. There is some tank damage which is relatively irregular since you don't know how he will pull. There is a boss ability that usually is not interrupted and does heavy damage (on 1 person?).

The result is that even if you spam 5-6 Prayers of Healing in the beginning there is still heavy damage. I usually end up with the 5man winning it but the health of everyone is very low or 1 dead.

(the ilevel is around the 5man, not overgeared for it)

Prayer of Mending doesn't appear to do that much either due to the heavy damage. Even if I resort to Greater Heal individually, it doesn't appear very efficient.

tl;dr: if that fight is done clumsily in a regular random 5man, the raid damage is very irregular and shielding can not be done reliably(since people get random heavy damages)/ or other healing.

Any thoughts?

I tend to think the Disc Priest does not like irregular damage that is done in high numbers and at random people (that can't predict who it will be).

I usually just spam shields on everyone when cats are up, since they jump pretty randomly and usually everyone will get hit within the 15second window. PoM on cooldown, penance on tank, PoH/GH in between. Divine hymn if a lot of people go low, remember to not use it before a wave, safest thing is probably to use it right after. Power infusion on yourself helps a lot, and so does pain suppression on tank/whoever gets a lot of bleeding stacks from the cats.

Some of those suggestions are speculation and wishful thinking. If the 5man is clumsy you have no idea who is going to be beaten by a cat and due to GCD delays (and human delays) there is no way to manage to shield someone properly before he is down to 60% or less.

And if 2 or 3 are regularly around 50 and 40% Disc Priest is unhappy (when even if they are Greater Healed you've no idea if it will happen again to others).

Tell the tank to pull the cats slower and tell people to kill the cats faster, it really trivilizes the encounter. Many puggers will simply nuke the boss and cleave the adds which hurts like hell when the boss activates 15+ cats.

Well yeah of course, the encounter can be done properly, but this is irrelevant. The question is in the hypothetical scenario of such an encounter - imagine it is properly getting that damage - if the disc spec is capable of coping with the irregularity of damage (unknown who is going to get damage, how big it will be, etc.)

Right now I can only see shielding the whole group as relatively reliable, assuming of course one isn't overgeared for it (374+) and doing 2 or 3 Prayers of Healing just maxes everything.

I generally just keep PoM bouncing off the tank and then do pws/poh/repeat with dispels as needed. If people stand in the wave or are pulling their own cats because the tank is slow/they tab target, you will have to drop a few direct heals. If you have alot of trouble, just ask the tank to pull the mobs a little slower (ie 2-3 cats at once instead of 4-8 at a time).

Well yeah of course, the encounter can be done properly, but this is irrelevant. The question is in the hypothetical scenario of such an encounter - imagine it is properly getting that damage - if the disc spec is capable of coping with the irregularity of damage (unknown who is going to get damage, how big it will be, etc.)

Right now I can only see shielding the whole group as relatively reliable, assuming of course one isn't overgeared for it (374+) and doing 2 or 3 Prayers of Healing just maxes everything.

I understand disc has problems with aoe heals in that fight, and must thus resort to massive shielding. That being said, discipline hardly needs a buff in aoe. That would make it too good at tank healing + aoe healing. Holy has more interesting tools to deal with the group damage, but so far I have to say discipline is doing better than holy in cataclysm. So you have problems on one boss, big deal. Dispel, bubblez, profit.

Or run double healing specs; I have the impression that priests are subject to the most respecs out of everyone in the game. One spec for pvp (disc), one for leveling/questing (shadow), one for raids (disc/holy).

Ive healed it a few times on my alt disc priest, and what most people are saying is true, if you end up with a few people with the bleeds on em dont forget you can Hymn of w/e the healing one is called (slips my mind atm) pretty much guarntee's a free catch up and you can resume bubbles and flashes.

dispelling the dot and getting the AoE interrupted are crucial tho.

Or run double healing specs; I have the impression that priests are subject to the most respecs out of everyone in the game. One spec for pvp (disc), one for leveling/questing (shadow), one for raids (disc/holy).

My priest runs it as Disc A/AA spec, and doesn't usually have any problem. Assuming the tank/DPS can manage interrupting the tears and avoiding the waves, I can usually get away with:
- smiting the cats, then the boss when they're dead
- penance on the tank
- PW:S on the tank
- Archangel + POH when necessary
Maybe throw around some greater heals too, but don't usually need many.

I did this yesterday with a well decent DK tank (useful for mitigating magic damage, but tendency to spike damage) but three pretty awful DPS (as in "slow" not just nuking the boss) as Disc. In my experience, this is easier done with an AA spec than with a SoS disc spec, but both works.

As has been mentioned, dispelling Lash of Anguish is helpful.

Also, I find using Power Infusion and even Pain Sup and Barrier before P2 is good for saving mana. Glyph PoH as well for some extra trickle of healing.

If you prefer multi shielding, use Inner Will constantly, if you prefer direct casting, or feel you need to swap to directly casted heals, swap to Inner Fire. I tend to only shield the tank and the lowest DPS. If I get clawed myself, I use binding heal on myself + tank, and penance on the lowest other target. Smiting the cats to get a nice AA boost to AoE healing is helpful since it both adds damage and shortens the phase where the cats will run around clawing everyone.

One problem can be if you find yourself badly clawed by multiple cats and feel you spend a lot of time healing yourself. Try shield + ProM + penance on yourself to stabilise, then continue group healing. The initial ProM heal is bigger than the subsequent ones as well, so utilising that with some thought can be helpful as the tank might not be the one most in need of a large, instant heal.

Divine Hymn can be useful here if several people get hit by waves and you need some massive AoE healing fast. Just make sure you don't let the tank drop too low before you start channeling as I often find DH in its current state woefully weak to pick up tank health adequately.

Don't be afraid to burn your mana in P1, as you will get a bit of respite in P2. If you haven't used up PS, put it on the tank, get out the fiend and channel HoH for some mana. The AoE damage in P2 comes in bursts, so for instance the PoH glyph is helpful here while shielding other targets than the tank probably isn't.

My alt healer is a Holy paladin and I use almost the same tactics there to manage the AoE healing requirements. I am almost always nearly oom at the beginning on P2 on my paladin, but in that phase there is enough time to regen a bit.

As long as you have mana just spam PoH, all time. DA shields will be get used anyway unless dps is good. Even if no-one needs healing, just do it. If healing is too hard, disc can also get 50k+ prepull DA up on party by spamming PoH before pull and then drinking mana up.

This is by far hardest 5-men hc boss to heal as disc, try to have fiend, both hymns and mana potions ready for this, can be really hard with bad pug.

After having done this boss on 5 different toons(including 3 healers), I tell my pugs this when I tank it on my pally:

1) Minimal threat on boss until all cats die, dont push her over
2) Interrupt Tears (crystal chucking channel)
3) Run out of the way of shadow waves

Then I have fun with this fight. It really is a peach to tank. I LoS the hell out of her as I gather cats and have the DPS kill them.
Stubborn DPS either stay on her or run around the corner to kill the cats (most pick the latter)
And surprise surprise, most of the time they do interrupt her when needed.

This fight is a classic example of stop putting the burden on the healer. The fight is very trivial for a healer if done right.

Keep the party shielded, binding heal anyone low (or the tank, if in any doubt) and if no one is about to die imminently, start casting some Prayers of Healing. Not only will that throw some healing on everyone, it'll put up DA bubbles to take the edge off the next wave of damage. And while PoM isn't going to move life bars a ton with each jump, it's still a very strong HPM/HPS use of a single GCD as long as everyone is taking damage (as in that fight), so keep it up on cooldown.

Beyond that, just spot heal with Penance whenever its off cooldown and remember to use your longer cooldowns (Pain Suppression, Power Infusion on yourself and Power Word: Barrier) at the appropriate times (barrier when people are closer together in phase 1, suppression when the tank has an entire group of cats in addition to the boss, PI at pretty much any time in phase 1).